Let’s say that you’re a market commentator or financial blogger… If earlier this year you predicted that unemployment would climb higher than 10% and that the market would be crushed, would you now be considered half-right or half-wrong by your followers? Will you be rewarded for nailing the unemployment number or hated for keeping readers out…

Yes, I’m about to give props to Goldman. Deal with it. The single biggest, most profitable market call of the last decade was made in 2001 by economist Jim O’Neill, then working at none other than Goldman Sachs. The call was made in Global Economics Paper #66 aka “Building Better Global Economic BRICs” and it…

This is just a random fashion observation I’ve made recently concerning the tightness of jeans in relation to the overall condition of the economy. Maybe Alyx from LOLFed will point out where I’m wrong (she knows this stuff), but here’s what I’ve seen: Lates 70’s to Early 80’s The first era of tight and tapered…

Dear President Obama, I did not vote for you last November as I’m not a “joiner” and faux-grassroots movements make me cringe (remember the Ross Perot scare of the late 80’s?). I doubt you will read this as it most certainly will not make Rahm Emanuel’s list of approved reading materials. On the off-chance that…

Since everyone loves a growth story, I thought I’d chime in with this lovely statistic on personal bankruptcy filings: According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, total bankruptcies will exceed 1.4 million for 2009, this is the highest number since 2005, and represents a 30% jump from last year’s total of 1,074,225. Now before you get excited and say, “well then I guess things…

Click Image to Embiggen! I’ve been asked several times to update my finance blogger list, so I figured on the week of The Reformed Broker’s first anniversary, I’d oblige. Everyone listed on The Periodic Table of Finance Bloggers has either inspired, educated or entertained me in some way, so I figured I’d return the favor. …

If you’re not reading Doug Kass on a regular basis, here’s one more reason why you should… This morning he posted his Letterman-style list 20 Signs Of How Bad The Economy Is over on RealMoney Silver. You need a subscription to read it, so I’ll only share two or three of these: The economy is…

Two big numbers out this morning, we’ll put up the initial take on both: GDP (from Bloomberg) The U.S. economy grew in the third quarter for the first time in more than a year, propelled by stimulus-driven gains in consumer spending and home building. The world’s largest economy expanded at a 3.5 percent pace from…

Virtually everyone I speak with on The Street is looking toward Thursday morning’s GDP report for the 3rd quarter of 2009. This is supposedly THE quarter, the one that proves we are, in fact, growing again. When explaining to clients what the GDP report actually is, I use the following quick-and-dirty equation: Consumption + Investment…